


filling in the pieces

by starkly



Series: you don't have to do this alone [5]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: F/M, M/M, Multi, Polyamory, Pre-Iron Man 1, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-14
Updated: 2018-01-14
Packaged: 2019-03-04 15:49:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,025
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13367979
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starkly/pseuds/starkly
Summary: The soulmark's some sort of triangle pattern inside a circle, but he won’t be able to tell for sure until he finds the person who has the other half of the design. Though…it’s awfully small to be half a soulmate mark. It looks kind of like there’s more missing than there should be.





	filling in the pieces

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written for NaNoWriMo 2017 and posted at [dailyironfamily](http://dailyironfamily.tumblr.com/post/167183605650/day-05-soulmate-au) on tumblr. This fic was proofread before being posted here but is otherwise unchanged.
> 
> Day five: soulmate AU. I went with soulmate identifying marks as the particular trope, always a classic. This fic features Tony/Rhodey morphing into Pepper/Tony/Rhodey and takes place mostly pre-IM1 and some during IM2.

When Jim wakes up on his twelfth birthday and sees the partial soulmate mark on his skin, he’s both exhilarated and frightened. Not everyone gets one, and he’d been worried he’d be one of those people. Now that he sees it, however, bright blue mark like a beacon on his inner thigh (and that’s going to be an annoying spot, isn’t it, but at least it’s easy to hide), he’s more worried about what it means. The thought of having someone out there who’s supposedly your one true love is pretty big for a twelve year-old to process.

From what he can see, it’s some sort of triangle pattern inside a circle, but he won’t be able to tell for sure until he finds the person who has the other half of the design. Though…it’s awfully small to be half a soulmate mark. It looks kind of like there’s more missing than there should be.

He shows him mom and asks her if something’s wrong with him, that his mark is even less complete than it’s supposed to be. She hugs him and tells him there’s nothing wrong, but he’s pretty sure that’s what moms are supposed to say in situations like these.

* * *

Ughhh, he really should not have drunk that much, Tony laments as he pulls a pillow and all the blankets off the nearest bed, dropping them on the floor and then laying face down on top of the pile. He’s only met the roommate of his current drinking buddy a couple times—James something—but he’s sure he won’t mind.

He’s halfway into what he’s pretty sure is a coma when he hears the door open behind him and he says, “What, you strike out with Martha already?”

The voice that answers is definitely not the one he’s expecting.

“Who are you and why are you on my floor?” asks the mysterious roommate, James something.

“It’s Tony,” he mumbles, but when he tries to look over his shoulder it makes his forehead throb and he drops his head back onto the pillow he stole. He hunches his shoulders, clutching the pillow closer, and groans. “I’m in the middle of dying, so if you could leave me alone—”

“Hey, that’s—that’s mine!”

At first he thinks the guy’s just offended that Tony had stolen stuff off his bed, but James sounds shocked, and slightly horrified, which is a bit of an overreaction to borrowed blankets, in Tony’s opinion. So he forces himself up on his elbows, twisting around to see James pointing at him.

Tony looks down at where he’s pointing, then back up at the guy, and grins. “My ass?”

“No!” He takes a step forward, then stops as if thinking better of it. “That.”

It’s only then that Tony realizes his shirt had hidden up, exposing his lower back and, more importantly, the bright blue of his soulmark. He feels even sicker than he did a minute ago, the implication of James’s words hitting him like a sucker punch to the stomach.

“No way,” he says, sitting up the rest of the way, ignoring his aching head. James starts taking off his jeans and Tony panics even further. “What are you doing!”

“What—? Calm down, I have to show you—”

Tony decidedly does not want to see anything this guy has to show him under his pants, but he doesn’t look away, even as James kicks off his jeans and twists his leg to show Tony his inner thigh, a frighteningly similar blue mark on his skin.

“Holy shit.” He’s up on his knees in a flash, crawling closer to get a better look. It’s the same color as his, and the same design: the corner of a double triangle, with a circle around it, and lines connecting the two. Turning around, he tugs his shirt up and tries to look at his lower back, comparing the two marks.

James is staring too, one hand on the bedpost to steady himself. “Holy shit is right. Aren’t you like, twelve?”

“I’m fifteen,” Tony protests. “And I know you, you got in a year early, didn’t you? You’re only like, seventeen.”

James is still staring at his back, so Tony drops his shirt, pulling the hem down.

“Does it seem like…we’ve only got thirds?” James asks tentatively after a moment. Tony doesn’t answer. He’d suspected as much since he saw his mark for the first time as a kid, but seeing James’s mark now confirms it. They each only had a third of a mark.

“Christ.” James sinks down to the floor, sitting in the nest of blankets Tony had made. “There’s another one of us.”

Tony was way too drunk to process this right now. He’d already found it hard to wrap his head around the fact he had one soulmate, but  _two_? It happened sometimes, sure, but not to  _him_. Two people who could love him, supposedly for forever. It’s impossible.

James pulls him from his thoughts by holding out his hand. Tony stares at it, confused, before slowly taking it in his own hand. “I’m James Rhodes,” James says, shaking his hand. “I think we’re soulmates.”

“Hi,” Tony says stupidly, staring up at his face instead of their clasped hands now. “I’m Tony Stark.”

“It’s nice to meet you, Tony.” James smiles, and even through his drunken haze, Tony doesn’t think he ever wants to look at anything else but that.

* * *

Pepper has never shown her soulmate mark to anyone. She keeps it hidden, even from the people she’s dating. Sex complicates things a little, but if someone really wants to dump her for keeping a bra on the whole time, they weren’t worth dating anyway.

Regardless, most people assume she doesn’t have one, and she likes it that way. If there’s someone out there who truly is perfect for her, they’ll have to earn her love just like anyone else.

So the first time she sees Tony Stark’s lower back, and the mark on it, she chokes on her coffee.

“Don’t be such a prude, Potts,” he remarks idly, because she’s holding paparazzi photos of him naked on a beach, and clearly he thinks she’s horrified by the sight of his bare ass.

She clears her throat, gratefully grabbing onto the unintended misdirection he provided. “I just hadn’t expected them to be such…clear shots.”

“Yeah, sorry about that. I even promised Rhodey nobody would find us there.”

And that’s the real kicker, isn’t it. She’s only been Tony’s P.A. for a few months, but she knows that Tony and Rhodes are an item, of the soulmate variety, despite them keeping it on the very down low. But here’s Tony Stark, nude photos in hand, bearing the same mark she has carefully covered above her right breast. Even if she was mistaken about him and Rhodes being soulmates, she certainly wasn’t going to break them up because of a silly bit of ink.

“Don’t worry, Mr. Stark,” she tells him firmly, gathering up the photos. “I’ll take care of this. The photos’ll be gone before you know it.”

Tony smiles, that same grateful little smile he seems to direct at her more often than not, the one she’s never sure how to interpret. “You’re the best, Potts.”

“I know,” she agrees with a nod, then heads off to get to work.

* * *

It’s fine for years until finally it isn’t. She’s not sure where the tipping point is—the incident in Afghanistan? Before that? The night he danced with her and then disappeared? Whenever it is, she’s watching Tony tell the world he is Iron Man, and something breaks.

She loves Tony Stark.

He and Rhodey are still together though, and she’s not breaking up a relationship that’s gone on, from what she can tell, for over a decade. She loves Tony Stark and he doesn’t love her. Which is fine. She’s always thought this soulmate nonsense was exactly that: nonsense. Nothing in the world is perfect and fated and whatever other lies the media likes to tell about soulmates. Real people have problems.

Granted, most people’s problems don’t involve kidnappings and betrayal and giant metal suits, but Tony’s always been special.

It’s not until Tony’s handing her the keys to the kingdom, so to speak, that she personally snaps.

“That’s it! I can’t do this anymore,” she mutters, setting down her glass of champagne and grabbing the hem of her shirt instead.

Tony, understandably, freaks out as she pulls her shirt off. “Jesus, Pep, stop—you don’t have to have sex with me to get the company, that’s not—”

She ignores him, dropping her shirt, and tugs at the edge of her bra, revealing the blue mark there, almost too pale to see against her fair skin. Tony freezes, shocked into silence. Pepper takes this rare opportunity to speak.

“I haven’t said anything because I know you and Rhodey…you’ve got something really good, and I didn’t want to mess that up. You’re my best friends, and honestly, soulmates are ridiculous, you know? So what if we’ve got matching tattoos we didn’t ask for? Why does that have to mean—”

Tony finally finds his voice only to say, “Oh my God, Pepper,” and she startles, falling silent. Instead of saying anything else, Tony pulls out his phone, fingers flying across the screen, and she frowns in confusion.

“What are you—?” She catches sight of a series of what look like racy photos and she leans back, saying, “Don’t you dare show me a dick pic right now, Tony.”

“No, wait, listen.” He taps on one to enlarge it, using his other hand to cover anything indecent in the photo. It wouldn’t have mattered either way, because Pepper only has eyes for the mark on Rhodey’s leg—because whose else could it be? Her jaw drops slightly, staring at a second identical mark to her own.

“So you—you are soulmates?” Her brow wrinkles in confusion, looking back up at Tony.

“I think we’re all soulmates,” Tony says slowly, looking her straight in the eye, and Pepper sees only sincerity and, to her surprise, hope.

“I think you need to call Rhodey,” she says after taking a deep breath, picking up her shirt and putting it back on. “We’ve got a lot to discuss.”

* * *

“I can’t believe I told you we were soulmates and you didn’t tell us you were dying!” she shouts as soon as they’re all alone. Vanko’s done, Hammer’s in jail, SHIELD finally isn’t bothering them, the expo’s a mess, but at least they’re all together and alive.

“I didn’t want to worry you,” Tony says weakly, because it had sounded like a good idea at the time but now that he’s faced with Pepper and Rhodey’s wrath it was clearly a terrible idea.

“Oh yeah, because your behavior really rid us of any worry,” Rhodey snaps, then sighs, wrapping his arms around Tony and pulling him into a tight hug. “You idiot.”

Pepper hovers on the edge of the hug, uncertain, then steps in to throw her arms around them both. Tony just closes his eyes and basks in their warmth until Rhodey lets go and steps back, saying,

“All right, so let’s see it.”

“See what?”

He points to Tony’s chest and oh yeah, neither of them have seen the new reactor. Suddenly embarrassed, he pulls up the hem of his shirt, showing them the new design. It’s a circle, of course, with two triangles inside it, and lines connecting the outer triangle to the circle. Their full soulmark, finally complete.

“Oh,” Pepper says very quietly, hand covering her mouth.

Rhodey smiles, grabbing Tony’s hands and tugging them away from his shirt, drawing him back into his embrace. “You’ve always been a huge sap.”

“I’m still mad at you,” Pepper mumbles, but she doesn’t stop them from pulling her back into the hug too.

“I think I can live with that,” Tony replies, settling his hand on her hip, “as long as it means you’re sticking around.”

Pepper smiles, glancing between both men and their hopeful expressions. “Yeah. I guess it does.”


End file.
